The Inner Shamanka / Wise – woman

Using Shamanic practices; I have been guiding women for four years to journey to connect to their inner Wise –woman/Shamanka for the purpose of recovering their authentic self and their medicine. I have been working with my own Inner Shamanka for 18years.

By bringing to consciousness this wise Shamanka part of ourselves and making a place for her in our being we begin the work of Soul retrieval and healing.. She is our medicine woman, the part of us who knows, who guides. She is our truth, our natural self.

In my course ‘Healing the maiden- Restoring Elder hood’ she becomes the wise elder we never had. She helps us with the work of soul retrieval as we begin calling back the fragmented parts of us that left during our maiden years. The maiden years for most of us were unconscious, precarious and for some traumatic . As Clarrissa Pinkolas Estes puts it in her book ‘Women that run with the wolves’, by the time young women reach 18 they only have a few tufts of their Soulskin pelt intact…this in shamanic terms means that we have suffered soul loss.

I bring the work with our Inner Shamanka and journeying to the Rites of passages we had on our journey to becoming woman. She can guide us as we go back and heal the thresholds that we crossed as young women unconsciously. Our inner Wise-woman holds those fragmented soul parts that were not honoured, witnessed or held by our families, communities and culture , as these parts transform and become whole.

We need to journey a number of times with our inner Shamanka before we begin calling back our young girl ,teenager or maiden. It is important that this is done first. We need to make a strong place in our being for this wise part of ourselves, a lodge, where we can get to know her and understand her and our medicine and gifts. The lodge is a place where we can go to sit and hold council with her.

Once we have her settled and conscious we can work with a strong intention to restore our maiden years and the Rites of passages we have already crossed.

Once we have our maiden soul parts back and they feel honoured, held and celebrated, then begins the work of integration.

I think this is the most important work around soul retrieval. For the recovered parts of ourselves to stay , we have to make a place for them in our lives, we have to really welcome them home, we have to make the changes that are needed to help them stay.

This is where we again see the value of creating that lodge in our being for our Inner Shamanka, because she helps us with this work.

For example , we called back our young girl (age 8-11) and place her in the lodge with our inner Wise-woman. As the days go by since she came into the lodge , we can feel something needs to change, more healing is needed, maybe there are some uncomfortable feelings…what can we do? She needs help to integrate. This is where our Inner Shamanka comes in again. We go and check in with our inner Wise -woman, we hold council with our wise-woman and our young girl. We can ask her to give the young girl part of ourselves what she needs, or we can ask her if there is something we need to give our young girl, is there something we need to change in or lives to help her ?etc etc…maybe we need to make a ceremony, our inner wise -woman will tell us and guide us how to help her integrate….

This process of going back and checking in and getting guidance needs to continue for a long as it takes for the young girl part of us to become whole so that it integrates back into our being.

In my experience this is a very empowering way of working as we are conscious of what we and our younger selves need and we are proactive in our own process of healing.

What I love is finding simple ways to give people the tools for self-healing.

Once we start healing our adolescent years with the help of our Inner Shamanka ,we can then deepen into this work and feel the threads and strands of our medicine that lay hidden during our teenage , maiden years and pull them through into the present to harvest the gifts that are available. This in turn leads us towards healing our future thresholds, our future rites of passages, as our medicine with the help of our Inner Shamanka begins to weave our beautiful medicine bundle , helping us step fully (finally!) into our calling and leave our legacy for the future generations.

This is the work that is needed for all of us, for our daughters, for our sons, for the Earth.